Povl Riis

Riis was born on 28 December 1925.^[2]

In 1956 he used, for the first time, amniocentesis to make an antenatal diagnosis of genetic disease.^[3]

Riis also served as chair of National Research Ethics Committee of Denmark, from its creation in 1979, until 1998.^[4] He wrote the second version of the Helsinki Declaration of Human Research in 1975 with Prof. Bloomquist (Sweden) and Prof. Engers (Norway). He is also a founding member of Vancouver Group of Medical Editors.^{[citation needed]}

Riis received his M.D. from the University of Copenhagen in 1952 and DM Sci in 1959. He served there as a professor of medicine from 1974-96. He was physician-in-chief of the medical department of the Gentofte Hospital, Copenhagen from 1963 to 1976,^[4] and physician-in-chief for gastroenterology at the Herlev University Hospital, Copenhagen, from 1976 to 1996.^[4]

He was also vice president of the European Science Foundation from 1974–77 and the Chairman of the Danish Medical Research Council from 1972-77.^[5]

He was editor-in-chief of the Journal of the Danish Medical Association from 1957 to 1991.^[4]

He served on the Journal of the American Medical Association's editorial board from 1994; and as chair of the Nordic Cooperative Board for Medical Science from 1970 to 1972; of the Danish National Sciences Ethical Committee for Medicine from 1979–98; and of the Age Forum from 1996.^[4]

He died on 2 January 2017.^[2]

• Povl Riis in Den Store Danske
• Povl Riis on the History of Modern Biomedicine Research Group website